


everything is going to be alright.

by sombregods



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adopted Children, History, Long Lives Good Lives, M/M, Old Men In Love, Post-Canon, Tender Blowjobs, legacy, tenderness in general tbh.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:21:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26142526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombregods/pseuds/sombregods
Summary: Despite the decades behind them, it astounds him that he is allowed to do this. It has been thirty years since he first kissed Felix: then, on the battlefield, amidst corpses and demonic beasts, the two of them darkened with grime and blood. Their bodies were young, ardent, possessed with a longing neither of them quite knew what to do with.Now desire comes to them more slowly. Dimitri has learned patience. He knows Felix’s body so intimately it might well be his own. He knows that the backs of Felix’s arms are unbearably sensitive, and that a kiss lain at the base of his vulnerable neck will leave him panting with desire. He knows that his left hip aches when it thunders. He knows how Felix falls asleep, and how he comes awake. He knows how he looks in the throes of pleasure, when the world falls away from their fingertips and there is nothing left in the world than this chamber, this bed, this moment, thisus.Thirty years into the future.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 16
Kudos: 75





	everything is going to be alright.

When Felix returns from the Fraldarius duchy, on Horsebow Moon, Dimitri is sequestered with envoys from Galatea and Charon, deep in talks of levies and tariffs over the year’s barley yield.

It’s dry, tasteless stuff, and they have been talking in circles for hours. Yet Dimitri is too well-trained in matters of kingship to reveal his boredom, and it is with the utmost calm that he settles any flaring quarrels between the envoys. They are young men, four, impetuous and eager, flustered in the presence of their king, and impatient to prove themselves; Dimitri smiles as he accedes to a request to visit Charon in the upcoming moon, and allays the ruffled feathers of the Galatea delegates with a promise to lighten the border tolls for heavy convoys. In exchange, he gets what he wants: capitulation under the upcoming barley taxes, which will lead to crown funds allocated to the building of new schools and hospitals, and the strengthening of those already existing.

Galatea and Charon exit due west, having given up far more than they have obtained in negotiations. Their bows are deep, precise.

Dimitri waits till the door is shut to stand. Ah, it was a morning well-spent; but he suspects the muscles of his back and thighs will ache and strain from four hours spent in a straight-backed mahogany chair. His neck is cramped, and a slight headache is beginning to assail his temples. He turns to the window, which gives into the royal courtyard, and, on its far side, the great double doors of the King’s Barracks. Proud, high-necked horses prance in practiced exercise, noses steaming white and coats shimmering in the noon sun; soldiers in gleaming armor and azure sashes stand guard at regular paces, all, Dimitri knows, excellently trained and qualified, as per his orders. Banners in regal blue float loftily in the soft wind. For a moment, the sun-bright lightness seems to dance, to blur, and something very deep in Dimitri wonders if he merely is dreaming, dreaming a better future than he can ever hope for …

‘Your Majesty.’

The door has opened. Dimitri lifts his head, blinking back dark fantasies.

‘Gauvain.’ His voice, he is pleased to recognize, sounds entirely normal. ‘What is it?’

His custodian—a Leicester man, brought into his retinue five years ago—makes him a rigorous bow. His eyes are fixed somewhere above Dimitri’s right shoulder. ‘His Grace has returned. He has requested you not be disturbed, but your orders were not to be disregarded.’

The slow ache in Dimitri’s ribcage transforms, becomes silver and pure. He smiles again: a true smile, this time. ‘You did well, Gauvain.’

* * *

He is waylaid on his way down the stables, crossing through a training square not far from the main gates. Felix will forgive him the interval.

‘Dimitri!’ cries a young voice, and a young body careens into his legs. Grubby little hands grasp at the backs of his knees.

It is followed, in due course, by another _three_ little ones, each no older than eight, all of whom latch onto his much greater form with enthusiasm. ‘Dimitri!’ they chirp, in cacophonous unison, and Dimitri laughs, bending his aching back to pick two of them up and hoist them against his chest. They are still wielding practice swords, and he has to duck his head to avoid a wooden hilt from slamming into his eye.

‘Easy, Aveline. Manuel. You are not training now. Take good care of me.’

‘My apologies, your Majesty,’ says Elene, breathless. She is coming on the heels of the children, a tall, slender girl of seventeen, in training gear, with the dusky skin and light hair evocative of Duscur. She takes little Lorraine’s shoulder, her hand sliding with sibling-familiarity across the back of the child’s neck. ‘They cannot contain themselves when they see you—’

‘You were much the same at their age,’ says Dimitri gently. ‘And you used to call me Dimitri, I recall—as they do.’

To his delight, Elene ducks her chin, the freckles across her nose much pronounced in the bright sunlight. Dimitri extracts one gloved hand from Aveline’s sticky fingers and holds it out to her. ‘Come. His Grace has returned. We must prepare to greet him.’

They wander, trailing an ever-growing entourage of children, towards the great royal stables. The little ones chatter incessantly, and smear tacky handprints on Dimitri’s cloak, but he cares little, mildly preventing them from climbing all over his shoulders, which—broad as they are—can hardly bear the weight of four eight- to ten-years-old at once, anymore. Elene tells him with shy enthusiasm of her schooling. Not unlike Dimitri, she is growing into a fine lance-wielder; unlike Dimitri, she will be an accomplished tactician—not one to charge blindly, but subtle and strategic. ‘Your skill with mathematics never fails to amaze me,’ he remarks: ‘you must spend more time with Annette. Have you had news of Dedue, of late?’

‘Di _mi_ tri,’ demands little Celino, tugging incessantly on his hand.

‘Yes?’

‘Aren’t you gonna fight us today?’ Celino is ten, has lately had a growth spurt, and is as fierce with a sword as Felix was at his age. Dimitri chuckles, his fingers straying in his curling hair.

‘I am not sure I would dare. You defeated me soundly last time.’

This raises a cheer, not least from four-year-old Jean, who raises his chubby arms in the air and bubbles in glee. Celino says, insistently: ‘I can do it _faster_ now.’

Dimitri makes a show of persecution. ‘Very well. But you must promise me that you will be careful. I would not want anyone to be hurt, least of all myself.’

The promise, easily sworn, is as easily forgotten. Dimitri, rubbing his nose, takes his position in the center of a mostly empty courtyard, spreads his arms wide as the children fan out excitedly around him, and opens his mouth to speak words of caution—

‘Take down the king!’ screeches Celino at the top of his lungs, and Dimitri is immediately beset with shrieking children, all of whom are attempting to scale him.

It doesn’t take long for him to admit defeat: little arms are twining around his neck and little hands are banging upon his stomach, his legs already buckling under the weight of his attackers. He falls very slowly, very dramatically, careful enough not to squash anyone under his bulk, and reclines on his back, arm thrown above his head in helpless defeat, as Hanna and José and Isaak crawl across his broad chest and tug messily upon his tunic laces. Celino, being canny, grabs at the eyepatch and carries it aloft in triumph. Whoops and shrill squawks fill the dusty air.

Helpless, Dimitri puts his hands over his face and laughs.

And laughs, laughs, laughs, until a shadow falls over him.

‘Pathetic, boar king,’ says Felix. ‘Defeated so soon?’ and when Dimitri opens his eye he is—there, bent over him, his lined face tired-looking from his travels, yet inexpressibly soft.

* * *

‘I missed you so,’ says Dimitri, afterwards, trailing after Felix through the covered cloisters of the palace.

‘You would,’ says Felix. He’s still filthy from the journey, his long coat covered in dirt, the gloves clenched in his hand streaked with chalk. Dimitri doesn’t much care. ‘Beast. Don’t.’

Dimitri takes his face between his hands nonetheless, bending down enough to lean their foreheads together. Felix’s lips thin and his eyes tighten; but then he sighs, and relents. ‘I missed you. Too.’

Dimitri says, ‘I know.’

His thumb brushes the corner of Felix’s mouth, the deep grooves etched into the skin there, and Felix jerks himself away. ‘Not here.’

There are guards stationed at every corner, a necessary precaution when one’s King is a reformist trailblazer who has sought to abolish the dominance of those born with a Crest, who builds networks of charitable hospitals and schools throughout the land, who adopts orphans by the semi-dozen every year, who has given Duscur its sovereignty back. It is, in truth, one of Felix’s own measures of protection: whenever Dimitri insists on carrying out a diplomatic proposal that is equal parts idealistic and foolish, Felix ups the number of guards assigned to his security. Those soldiers are proficient and highly-trained, often by Felix himself, and are more than used to turning a blind eye to the King and his Duke’s—ah—amorous overtures.

It’s charming, in a way: that Felix should still try to defend their modesty, thirty years after the fact.

‘I did miss you,’ Dimitri repeats, earnestly, ‘most dreadfully,’ against his lover’s mouth, and Felix’s own hands come up to cup Dimitri’s jaw, his calloused fingertips brushing through Dimitri’s beard.

They lean against each other. Dimitri inhales the smell of Felix down into his throat: horse, sweat, sword polish, the bright sharpness of sun on metal.

‘Old man,’ says Felix, his lips twitching in a bare, spare smile. Dimitri treasures it most preciously. Felix’s smiles are rare, kept in the dark, kept secret, or retained for the children. Dimitri has often stolen away from his royal duties for the simple pleasure of watching these bright boys and girls challenge the Shield of Faerghus to spar, for he knows there is no greater fondness in Felix’s heart than that he has for them; except, perhaps, the fondness he holds for his King.

Felix does not let them lose easily. His duels are majestic lessons in sword-wielding, footwork, sparring, and dance. Even now, though his body is frailer than ever before, he trains rigidly and without respite. He is still deathly, _ominously_ capable. Dimitri loves to see him move.

Here. Here in the sun, he strokes his hand down Felix’s flank and around his slender waist, closing his eye against his temple. Felix’s long traveling coat brushes his own tunic. ‘How stands Fraldarius?’

‘Fraldarius thrives.’ There is a deep satisfaction in Felix’s voice. He has named his extant heir six years ago—a resourceful woman by the name of Charlotte Fraldarius, a distant cousin of Rodrigue—and his duties in Fraldarius have grown lesser as she has gained in authority among the local lords. One day, Dimitri knows well, he will relinquish all his functions there but the most ceremonial.

It is a loss in Felix’s heart. It’s Rodrigue’s death, in a small part; it is Glenn’s, who ought to have governed there, come the time. Not Felix: never Felix. It is a mourning of the soul—many, many years after they are both gone. It is unlikely ever to end.

But Felix has made his choices and chosen his path a long time ago, and Dimitri knows he has no patience for regret.

‘Come on,’ he murmurs now, and gives Dimitri his hand. They duck underneath a great arch, and descend a large marble staircase, butter-soft in the sunlight. Felix heads for the main advisor’s domicile, a low wing of the palace that overlooks its nucleus, mere seconds from the throne room and from the King’s Apartments. He spends part of his days there, overseeing the garrisons and enduring more paperwork than either of them ever thought ruling Fódlan would comprise. His nights are spent elsewhere.

‘Will you join me—’ Dimitri asks, halfway down, ‘tonight?’

Felix lifts his eyebrows at him, and the corner of his mouth tilts smugly.

‘I dine with the Ambassador of Albinea,’ Dimitri hastens to add. ‘They arrived by wyvern yesternight.’

‘I will,’ Felix says, and lays his fingertips on Dimitri’s mouth. Dimitri obediently shuts it.

Felix’s hands curl around the back of his neck, fingers straying through the few golden strands that have escaped the arrangement of Dimitri’s hair. His gaze is hot, intent, and his mouth half-parted.

 _Ah._ He looks—still, always, he looks at Dimitri as though he cannot believe he is truly there. As though he, too, is plagued by nightmares of the might have been.

Mildly concerned, Dimitri leans in close enough to slot their mouths together, a mere nudge of the lips that turns into something hotter and brighter and better as soon as Felix’s tongue meets his. Felix smothers a lewd sound in his throat; his fingers tighten to the point of pain on Dimitri’s flesh, and Dimitri bows him against his body, hands at his waist, then slipping to grab his gloriously tight ass—

‘Ah, your Majesty—oh. My apologies.’

Felix tears his mouth away. His body goes taut as a bird about to take flight. A guard falls short at the foot of the staircase, evidently torn between his commission and his embarrassment.

Dimitri coughs, delicately.

‘What,’ Felix barks. Dimitri runs his hand down his side, soothing and admonishing at once, and Felix looks at him and sets his jaw and says nothing. But subsides, as Dimitri knew he would.

‘I must,’ Dimitri admits, ‘go,’ for he has shirked his duties for the past two hours, and Felix snarls:

‘Go, then—’

And their hands between them are the last to part.

* * *

They never married.

The King’s advisors and generals have never looked positively on their affair. They have been fretful, and then displeased, as their sovereign has remained staunchly unwilling to consider taking a bride. They might have accepted an illicit liaison, of course, had Dimitri done his duty and consolidated the bounds within the newly United Fódlan by marrying into a Crest-bearing family; it would be nothing more than a political marriage, and lovers and illegitimate affairs are not unusual in the royal dynasty. But Dimitri bucks tradition with a smile. He waves away dowry offers, and every night takes his closest advisor to his bed.

Lord Bryant of Rowe and Lady Joubert of Fhirdiad have been, over the years, Felix’s most fervent critics. They oppose his conclusions in council meetings, denounce his too-frequent travels to the borders, dislike his arrogance and his soldier’s manners, and throw cynical conjecture over his unnatural influence on the King: their designs are as obvious as they are ugly. They propose possible brides as chattel, never relenting through Dimitri’s polite refusals; their latest suggestion was an eighteen-year-old, quite young enough to be his daughter. To his secret delight, they might as well swallow bushelfuls of lemons when Felix, never a diplomat and always opprobrious, refutes their critiques in a few well-pointed, scathing sentences.

Yet, often, it is he who has taken Dimitri to task for selfishness.

‘Do you wish me to take a bride?’ Dimitri has asked, reasonably.

‘I,’ Felix says, looking intransigent and hard-eyed and miserable.

They are in bed most often for this conversation, and Dimitri lays slow, teasing touches of his lips down Felix’s throat, his hands stroking down his sides. ‘As I have no desire to end this arrangement of ours—’

‘Nor I,’ snaps Felix, though his lips are turned down and rigid at the corners. ‘You are alienating part of your council—’

‘Since when do you care about alienating anyone, my love?’

‘I don’t,’ admits Felix, his fingers trailing down Dimitri’s bare back. ‘But you do.’

‘I have given up much,’ says Dimitri, soft. ‘I have abandoned causes dear to my heart. I have relinquished territories that needed our help most dreadfully. I must live with the memory of endless deaths. Compromises I _have_ made. Yet I will not let you walk away for the sake of honor or arrogance or sacrifice.’

He nudges Felix’s nose with his own. ‘Too often you _have_ walked away from me. Too often I have lost you; the choices I have made have torn us apart many times. I confess I would feel culpable, were you ever to be made to leave by my own foolishness. That would destroy me, Felix.’

‘If you think I’d leave of my own volition,’ Felix says, ferociously, ‘you are a bigger fool than I ever thought you were,’ and grasps Dimitri’s hips in his rough, war-torn hands.

* * *

‘But you need an _heir_ , sire,’ exclaims Lady Joubert, every now and then, and Dimitri promptly adopts four more orphans.

* * *

Dinner … happens.

It’s not an outright disaster. The Ambassador from Albinea is a canny, frugal person, who lays out compliments with a twist of her fine lips, smiles most constantly, and takes every advantage out of a private dinner to push for negotiations. There have been naval skirmishes in the north-western seas, and Dimitri’s generals inform him the Albineans are eager to establish commerce routes towards Sreng, along the northern coast. This diplomatic visit is nothing short of a possible war outbreak.

‘You understand, sire. Too long has Fódlan reigned over our seas without compunction or—indeed—any restriction whatsoever. The Continent is united and at peace; it has been so for many years. You have done great good in this world. Is it not time we became better neighbors?’

‘Quite,’ says Dimitri. ‘Yet better neighbors do not attack each other’s ships with no warning and little mercy, thus violating the peace treatises in place between our countries. Nor do they raid fishing villages in the middle of the night, on no provocation from our forces.’

The Ambassador spreads her ringed hands. ‘A misunderstanding, your Majesty, as our dispatches have proven. Those were mere brigands, acting under the guise of Albinean soldiers. As for the ships—’

Dimitri is politely disbelieving. ‘A war ship, Ambassador, in our seas? Straying close to the coast?’

‘Gone astray during the night, a discipline run—’

‘Cut the bullshit,’ says Felix.

Dimitri tilts his head. The Ambassador widens her eyes very minutely.

Felix’s mouth is hard, and the grooves that line his long-beloved face seem deeper than usual tonight. He has forgone his practical traveling clothing for an outfit far more ceremonial, close-fitting to his slender body, and regal blue, with many buckles and straps across the chest and thighs, and white fur over his shoulders: a sharp contrast to the Ambassador’s serpentine robe. His greying hair is pulled forbiddingly from his face; his sleeves cover his long fingers, outlining the sharp rotation of his wrists. Dimitri has exercised powers beyond his imagination in refusing to look too long at him. It is all he can do to endure the sight of Felix’s thighs in those long, black boots, his legs spread, his feet planted firmly on the floor.

Felix wets his lips in his wine, his eyes never leaving their guest, and says: ‘You’re dissimulating, Ambassador, and only my fool would believe for a _second_ that you’re being honest with him.’

‘Ah.’ She reassembles her strengths. ‘Your Grace is, of course, entitled to his opinion—’

‘Albinea sent those warships on purpose,’ Felix states, flat. ‘To test our resolve. You’ll not find us lacking.’

The Ambassador’s lips curve. ‘I see your Grace’s reputation is not overstated. Yet are we not allies, Duke Fraldarius?’

‘No,’ says Felix.

‘Put simply, Ambassador, we do not know you,’ Dimitri interposes, ‘nor your ruler, who is so famously secretive that they have not shown themselves in thirty years. Allyship is earned, and you have not, thus far, earned it. War ships are, of course, a threat to our commerce routes; yet we are willing to negotiate—’

‘Are we,’ Felix murmurs.

‘—if we may be assured of your full cooperation. It goes without saying that we cannot abide our population to be assailed in their homes. Our frontiers are sacred. There can be no straying.’

The Ambassador leans back in her chair. ‘Sreng?’ she asks abruptly, all languid manner dropped.

‘Will fall into line,’ says Felix.

‘Will be pleased to accompany us in our diplomatic efforts across the northern sea,’ Dimitri amends. ‘Take your warships away. There is no need for another conflict. There is no need for blood.’ He feels the irony of the words in his teeth. He tastes the old roaring madness—hears his past self laughing. It tingles at the back of his throat: it makes his palms tremble. His lashes fall—and—

And under the table Felix’s thigh presses firmly, deliberately, against his.

Dimitri’s heart eases. Starts anew. There is a pause.

‘They call you the Saviour King,’ the Ambassador says, softly. ‘The man who saved Fódlan from eating itself alive. A diplomatic ruler: a benevolent sovereign, chivalrous, magnanimous, driving philanthropy to extremes rarely seen. Yet—’ She appears to hesitate. ‘Your Majesty. There are some who remember the war.’

‘I see,’ says Dimitri softly.

‘The bloodbath of Fhirdiad Castle. The massacre at Gronder Field.’ Her voice is soft. ‘The one-eyed demon who cannot be appeased. Who thirsts on blood, and can never have enough of it. That cannot be easily forgot.’

Felix takes in a sharp little breath. Dimitri lays his hand over his; draws his fingertips down the side of his thumb.

‘Your point,’ Felix snaps. ‘Is it better, your Majesty, to parlay with a demonic beast than it is to fell it?’

‘Demonic beasts have no perception,’ says Dimitri, ‘but the awareness and memory of pain. Experiencing it, and inflicting it. They grow delirious with it, hungry, as you say, for blood, yet eternally wounded. That frenzy makes them weak to our attacks, for they are blind to peace. Their minds … their minds are a rabid, festering chaos of lust and greed … they abide no negotiation, and they suffer no mercy when they are killed.’

The Ambassador’s lashes flicker over her very bright eyes.

‘But we are not such, Ambassador. Fódlan is at peace, a painfully-won peace, one thirty years in the making. War appeals not to us.’

‘Does His Grace agree with you, I wonder?—Only one of you is a King; the other a soldier.’

Felix says, sounding bored: ‘My King’s positions are my own. His conclusions, mine. His wishes. His desires. I share them all, without sorrow and without shame.’ Dimitri’s fingertips are at his palm, resting against his lifeline. ‘You would do well not to try and divide us, Ambassador, in this matter as in any other. Greater ones have tried. Greater ones have failed.’

She nods, sober. And stands, bowing shortly. ‘I shall, of course, inform my sovereign of your stipulations, your Highness.’

‘Do,’ says Dimitri.

* * *

‘A diplomatic overture,’ Felix snorts, when Dimitri opens the door to his chambers. He is silhouetted against the fire, hands at his back. ‘Farcical.’

‘Come now,’ says Dimitri mildly, shutting the door with a final smile to the guards. ‘I don’t think it went that bad.’

‘She was ready to walk all over you,’ Felix snaps, his fingers already struggling with the straps that cross over his chest. ‘She would have, if it wasn’t for—’

‘You.’ Dimitri crosses the room and holds out his hands. ‘Let me.’

‘That bestial nature of yours,’ Felix corrects, but he sighs, and he turns to the fireplace. He lets Dimitri reach around him and unbuckle the leather harnesses that clasp his coat to his body; Dimitri slips his hands underneath, shaping them to the divot of Felix’s waist. Underneath is a silk shirt, embroidered white-on-white. And underneath that: skin. Soft, delicate, warm as anything.

‘Dimitri.’

‘Mmm?’ says Dimitri, nosing behind his ear. Felix has bathed and washed his hair before he changed: he smells like citrus and pine soap, like the hotspring water they bring in from deep underneath the castle.

‘You must be—tired.’

‘I am,’ says Dimitri. He was awake at dawn; it is long since past sundown. ‘As are you. And yet, Felix, I find that I want—‘

The coat slips and crumples to the floor, and then the belts and sashes. A sound comes from Felix’s throat, soft, and he leans back against Dimitri, his head tilting back against his shoulder, as his King presses his open mouth to his shoulderblades: to his neck: to his throat, thus bared. Felix arches in his grasp, granting them that gentle pressure, that subtle friction. Dimitri does not let him go—feels the body in his hands bow and respond to his, as he is long used to. With his own teeth he bites off the clasp that keeps his stately half-cape fastened to his shoulder. That too falls, and Felix’s boots trample it.

‘Dimitri,’ Felix sighs.

‘Say my name again.’

‘ _Dimitri_.’

Dimitri’s hand sweeps round his throat and tilts his head even further, so he can reach his lips. It’s an uneven kiss, Felix twisted round as he is, Dimitri bending down. The wet tip of Felix’s tongue brushes his own.

He is half-tempted to carry down the caress lower, to make for the laces on Felix’s pants. But Felix disengages himself. He runs the back of his hand across his mouth and he says: ‘Undress.’

‘Felix.’

‘Do it, Dimitri. Do it now.’

They are no strangers at playing obedience. Dimitri strips, his gaze never once leaving his lover: each layer reveals another, until he is bared of everything but a thin white shirt that hides little, and his trousers, that hide less. His desire is evident, obvious, intent.

‘Take down your hair,’ he says softly, his fingers moving to unlace his shirt.

Felix does. He wears it long, in a tight queue at the back of his neck. Released from its tie, his hair falls on his shoulders and down his back. There is now more grey in it than black. But the sight of it, soft, is still so intimate, so tender, so unbearably private that Dimitri is touched all over again with love.

Despite the decades behind them, it astounds him that he is allowed to do this. It has been thirty years since he first kissed Felix: then, on the battlefield, amidst corpses and demonic beasts, the two of them darkened with grime and blood. Dimitri was half-mad still; Felix was furious with his father’s death. Their bodies were young, ardent, possessed with a longing neither of them quite knew what to do with. They fucked in tents, by firesides, and in forest coves, while the war raged around them.

Now desire comes to them more slowly. Dimitri has learned patience. He knows Felix’s body so intimately it might well be his own. He knows that the backs of Felix’s arms are unbearably sensitive, and that a kiss lain at the base of his vulnerable neck will leave him panting with desire. He knows that his left hip aches when it thunders. He knows how Felix falls asleep, and how he comes awake. He knows how he looks in the throes of pleasure, when the world falls away from their fingertips and there is nothing left in the world than this chamber, this bed, this moment, this _us_.

Made naked by Felix’s orders, he leans back on the bed. The furs and cushions espouse his back, and he sighs, relaxing into the comfort of it. After a long day spent on his feet or in uncomfortable chairs, the softness is sublime.

Felix watches him, working his hand around the back of his neck. Then he climbs on top of him. Sits down his weight bodily on top of Dimitri’s hips, fingers splaying over his pectorals.

For a long moment he does nothing but look. Dimitri touches, softly, the small of his back and the base of his spine. Felix’s face is lined with age: crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, wrinkles on either side of his mouth. His nails dig into Dimitri’s flesh, sharp little bites of pain. Dimitri leans into it. His cock, pressed flush and swollen against Felix’s ass, shows how very much he likes it.

Felix doesn’t press back, though. Instead he moves back, his fingers trailing down Dimitri’s abdomen, the soft flesh there. Dimitri takes in a hissing breath, bucks up his hips a little.

There is a smile in Felix’s voice. ‘Mm. You’re eating.’

The King’s kitchens make sure of it, it’s true. In the past, Dimitri, harried by his lack of taste, has often forgotten to eat properly: without sweet or spice, nothing much appeals. In recent years, bolstered by their adoration for their King, his cooks have taken to preparing rich fare—gorgeous, crackling poultry, crisp fruit, sirupy puddings, soft breads, molten chocolate. He cannot taste any of them, but he can feel the textures. More than anything, he feels his people’s care in everything he eats.

Felix shifts enough that he is resting on Dimitri’s thighs, stroking his hands up his sides, and bows his head low. He kisses that softened stomach.

‘Felix—’ Somehow, Dimitri finds it in himself to be embarrassed. Felix’s eyes flicker up to his. Then, with definite purpose, he drags his lips down—past Dimitri’s hipbones, down to his thick, muscular thighs. Parts them. Lifts one over his shoulder, and kisses the sensitive inner side, the trembling muscle.

It is with an effort that Dimitri does not tighten his thighs around Felix’s head, does not force him to pay attention to his—straining, flushed—penis. It rests against his belly, drooling a little.

‘Felix … ’

Felix bites him, right in the flesh of his thigh. Dimitri breathes out a shivering laugh, pushing his shoulders back into the cushions at his back.

‘Come, love,’ he murmurs, and works his hands in Felix’s long hair, down through the thick fire-warmth of it. ‘I want … ’

‘I know what you want,’ says Felix. He hooks Dimitri’s leg higher still, nosing at the junction between his thigh and his groin, where Dimitri knows his blood beats, triple-time. ‘You insatiable animal.’

Dimitri wraps his hair around his fingers. ‘Come then,’ he says—compelling, decisive, commanding. He has had many years to master the voice of a King, and he knows well it makes Felix’s spine melt. It makes him look up. Felix is petulant about it, in a mean, cantankerous sort of way, and it is with a glare that he bends down his head and takes Dimitri’s cock in his mouth.

Even now he teases, though: he keeps only the tip between his lips, wrapping his fist around the base of Dimitri’s penis as he suckles on the slit. He knows how to pleasure Dimitri, after all these years. Knows that Dimitri will fuck him hard and fast, but that he prefers to be blown sweet and slow, doesn’t even need to feel the back of Felix’s throat, only the plush softness of his tongue, only the wet of his mouth and the bare menace of his teeth. It is what Felix gives him now, all tight lips and tighter fingertips, humming as Dimitri tries, and mostly fails, to breathe.

Dimitri comes in his mouth with a sigh, and Felix works him through every twitch of it, milking his cock until only a few dribbles are coming out of the slit. These he laps up, and crawls back up Dimitri’s body like a tired dog, only allowing himself to let go when he is cradled against Dimitri’s side, pillowing his head on Dimitri’s chest.

Dimitri’s fingers draw a lingering caress down his spine, down to the cleft of his ass. But Felix frowns. ‘Mm. No. Don’t need it.’

‘Alright,’ Dimitri says softly. He throws the furs over them both.

In the close warm dark of their bed, Felix’s hand finds his and holds it fast.

* * *

As is usual, Dimitri wakes only a few hours later. Uncharacteristically, he wakes because Felix has left the bed.

Felix stands, nude, and walks to the fire. Dimitri rolls onto his side, props his cheek against his fist, and watches his lover without a word. His body limned in the light. The narrow curved lines of his waist and hips, the lean muscle of his thighs, his swordsman’s arms, all taut sinew and tight skin. Scars snarl around his arms, his chest, his legs, his shoulders, white splashes that once tore and bled him open, now mercifully healed. Some are so old Dimitri can scarcely remember where he got them—some of them, he knows, were taken in the five years he was presumed dead, in the war. Others are younger, reminders that their peace is badly-earned.

Dimitri has traced them all with his tongue.

Finally he rolls to his feet, and joins Felix by the fireside. He knows too well what ails him—Felix, a soldier, has learned to wake at the slightest provocation, the first sign of battle; to draw his sword as soon as he draws breath. Like Dimitri, he is plagued with memory.

‘You need to name an heir,’ Felix says.

‘Mm?’

‘I mean it, Dimitri.’ Felix stares into the fire, his face grave and lined and old. ‘There is talk. Already factions are moving into place in prevision of your death.’

‘I assume you quashed these factions.’

A look of smug triumph passes over Felix’s face. ‘I did. I do. The point stands.’

Dimitri sighs. ‘I _have_ thought of it. Many times. I wonder … I wonder if Elene would accept the responsibility, in a few years.’

Felix clicks his tongue, thankfully more thoughtful than critical. ‘A Duscur woman. That would be … bold.’

‘She is an astute strategist,’ Dimitri says, warming to his topic. ‘She would do well in council—’

‘She is seventeen.’

‘I was but one minute old when I became the heir to the Kingdom of Faerghus. I was seventeen when I first went to war and became … who I am.’ Dimitri adds, soft: ‘I’ve no intent to die so soon, Felix.’

Felix makes a wounded noise. ‘You’ve been training her for this, haven’t you. How long have you thought of it?’

‘Long,’ says Dimitri, honestly. ‘It’s a start.’

Felix is touchy, often, after sex; but this time he does not snarl off and leave when Dimitri wraps his arms around him. He leans his head against Dimitri’s, weary, and says: ‘It’s a start.’

* * *

History will tell changed, amended accounts of their lives; it will twist them into marvels.

In the schools of Fódlan, children already learn about their King’s tragic past: his brutal orphaning at Duscur, his apparent execution in Fhirdiad, his disappearance into shadow and myth for five long years, and his miraculous return to lead Faerghus forces to victory against the Adrestian Empire. He is the sovereign who united the continent: he is the hope of Fódlan. He is beloved in households, and when he visits local towns, flowers are thrown in his path.

So too they tell stories of those who stood by him: Dedue, his most dutiful friend, who stood by him when no one else could; Mercedes, faithful and kind and generous, his truest believer; Annette, dedicated, brilliant Annette, who alone destroyed four battalions of mages to protect him; Ashe, as shy in company as he is deadly with a bow, long deserving of the chivalric epics he loves so well. And Ingrid and Sylvain, the King’s faithful soldiers, his safeguards, his protectors, his knights-in-waiting. And Felix—the Shield of Faerghus, yes; the King’s right hand, his advisor, his conscience, his breath. He, too, is lauded in stories, for his fearlessness and his devotion.

They all deserve (thinks Dimitri) to go into legend—far more than he.

So the lesson goes: the King is kind, thrust into responsibility at a too-early age, yet rising to his duty with nobility and courage; the King is wise, and rules the continent with a peaceful hand. Wordsmiths elide the ugly truths from history. Children first learn that their King is a good man. Then they learn that he is sad.

Dissenters’ stories are different, and in them Dimitri is little more than an animal. Blood drips from his maw, his claws, his fur, his throne. Hungry for power, he has arrogated the Empire and the Alliance and brought them to pace under his reign. He is the killer King, a monster without principle or duty, who hides under the guise of a man.

Neither storyline is truly right. Neither one is wholly wrong.

In time, even they will become the realm of historians. _They_ will debate Dimitri’s sanity; _they_ will contest his heritage and his legacy. His speeches, his actions, his proposals, his choices—for good or for evil—will come under centuries of scrutiny, study, and research. His name will live on. Dimitri does not know whether it will be in glory or infamy.

When all the words have been written, and all the lives have been lived, they will pass into myth. The battles where so many lost their lives will be commemorated until, one by one, they are forgot; and the great palaces of Faerghus will fall into obscurity. But long after Dimitri’s reign is lost to time, long after even their names have vanished, there will be tales about Ingrid’s daring and Sylvain’s great heart; fables about Annette’s magics and Mercedes’ goodness; fairytales about Ashe’s courage, about Dedue’s unflinching loyalty.

And stories about a man who held a sword and loved a king.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Derek Mahon's poem by the same name. It ends like this: 
> 
> _the sun rises in spite of everything  
>  and the far cities are beautiful and bright.  
> I lie here in a riot of sunlight  
> watching the day break and the clouds flying.  
> Everything is going to be all right._
> 
> [Come say hi on twitter!](https://twitter.com/o_honeybees) where I ... cry, mostly ...


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